Editor's note (August 29, 2019): This story
has been updated to remove images of a minor and add new
information. It was originally published on March 13, 2018.

Before NASA's
talented astronauts launch into space, they pose for an
official photo shoot.

Most future space flyers play it safe: They crawl inside a
custom-fit spacesuit, smile for the camera, then get back to
their rigorous training. A few, however, bring family, friends,
and even pets along for the fun.

During a portrait session by NASA in August 2017, Anne C. McClain - a member of
the 21st astronaut class, a decorated US army major, an attack
helicopter pilot, an aerospace engineer, and a mother - brought
her preschool-age son, she said in March 2018.

"The hardest part about training for space is the 4 yr old I have
to leave behind every time I walk out the door," McClain tweeted at the time.

At the time of her tweet in March 2018, McClain was responding to
Abby Wambach, a professional soccer player and fellow mom who was
seeking support in maintaining a work-life balance.

"I try to remember he will grow up and know what it looks like,
behind the scenes, to pursue a dream. He is my 'why,'" McClain
told Wambach.

In her Twitter thread last year, McClain posted photos of herself
in a spacesuit next to the boy. The pictures were taken by
photographer Bill Stafford, according to a representative at
NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Here are the heartwarming images McClain shared, and what she
said the kid thought of knowing an astronaut.

"Sometimes, I bring him to work with me. Not sure who enjoys it more!" McClain said in March.

"One provides immediate comfort, the other achieves not only lifelong goals but also teaches lifelong lessons. Gotta play the long game here," she said. "But it doesn’t make missing out on waffles with the kiddo in the morning any easier. Most parents can relate."

McClain told a BART-train-driving Twitter user that "[m]y son would trade me for a train driver without a second thought."

"He thinks it's pretty normal" to be an astronaut, she said. "His teacher asked their class what their parents did, and he told her I am an engineer. I asked if he told her anything else. He responded, 'Mama, NONE of my friends have ever met an engineer....'"

McClain isn't the only astronaut to get adventurous with her NASA photo shoots. Former astronaut Leland Melvin, who used to fly aboard the space shuttle, brought his rescue dogs Jake and Scout.

NASA's portraits didn't show the real Sokol flight suit that McClain wore when she launched to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Anne McClain/NASA

McClain tweeted
this photo of the suit in March, saying: "[O]ne day you come
to work and see this, and you realize it is not a costume. It is
real. Not for training. An actual space suit - and it's going to
actual space. And it has your name on it. 😳"

"[Y]ou have to try out said suit for nearly two hours while pressurized to make sure nothing hurts," McClain said on Twitter. "Well, that nothing hurts too badly. Mission accomplished. My first act in my new real spacesuit was to sit and watch a movie! Oh and play with my gloves."

After about six hours of flight, the crew safely docked with the space station. McClain is due back on Earth in June.

Before she returned, McClain and Christina Hammock Koch were scheduled to perform the first all-female spacewalk outside the International Space Station. But lack of an appropriately sized spacesuit torso for McClain led NASA to swap in fellow crew member Nick Hague, scuttling the chance to make spaceflight history.

NASA; Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

Update (March 25, 2019): Summer Worden, who
was married to McClain at the time of NASA's photo shoot,
contacted Business Insider by email following the publication of
this story. Worden said she is the biological mother and sole
legal parent/guardian of the minor. When we asked NASA for a
statement from the agency as well as one from McClain (who's
currently in space), NASA said it "has no statement on this and
does not provide information on employees' personal
matters."

Update (August 29, 2019): McClain tweeted on
August 24 that she's "been going through a painful, personal
separation that's now unfortunately in the media," referring to
news reports of the couple's separation and a
related legal claim.